NaruSasu Alternate Universes
by Asuka Kureru
Summary: Collection of various AU ficlets. AUs include cyberpunk, pirates, furries, firefighters, vampires, etcetera. Naruto-Sasuke centric.
1. Cyberpunk

**Alternate Universes**

Pairing: Naruto/Sasuke. Sasuke/Naruto. You get my meaning.

This is a series of ficlets from different AUs, not one big multipart story. As such, they will have different moods and ratings (none of 'em is "porn", though, sorry.)

Note: These are short. I will not lengthen them or write "what happens next".

* * *

**1. cyberpunk**: (Also known as my fic "Crossed Wires" if the Uchiha massacre had not happened. :p)

(_Target sighted_,) sends Uchiha unit UG-7-SA through his secure connection, along with a picture of the booth and all its occupants. He can only identify three of them. He would stay in real-time transmission, but the databursts have to be short or they'd be noticed and cracked. He receives confirmation from Detective Hatake, and an order to mingle as he waits. After that it's radio silence again. He lifts his glass to his lips and takes a sip of some strangely colored alcohol he cannot taste and which won't have any effect on him regardless. The H2O will be filtered and used; the alcohol flushed out.

He's a little... giddy anyway, though he pretends he isn't; he doesn't want to be called a babybot again. It's his first solo mission, and the radio silence means independence.

"What a girly drink!" someone says as they worm their way in his line of sight.

SA has calibrated himself to transmit his emotional reactions straight to his face fast, so the microsecond of delay won't give the humans he interacts with a subconscious feeling of unease; he frowns before he's thought better of it. It's the interruption that bothers him, more than the implied insult.

"I like it," he replies, giving the interloper a blank stare. He does, at that, taste notwithstanding. It's got layers. Purple and blue. Interesting.

The blond man laughs, loud and free, and his elbow nudges SA's arm. He's seen the behavior before, but never directed at him, so he can't help but glance down at his arm in baffled annoyance before he looks back up.

"Newbie, huh?"

Shit. He was supposed to mingle. He's tempted to deny, not sure what betrayed him, but an argument would be too distracting. He needs to keep the target in view. "... To this place, yeah."

The blond snorts and eyes him doubtfully. "You can't stay stuck at the bar all night, that's like for pathetic losers and people with two left feet."

Which he doesn't care about. But looking out of place? That he does care. His orders were clear. He frowns a little more.

The blond tilts his head, eyes narrowed as he stares at SA openly. After a moment, he grins. There's a challenge in there that rubs SA the wrong way.

"D'you need me to teach you how to dance? And don't worry about imposing, I'm nice with all the newbs."

... Okay, that's it. SA checks on his target again. Still hasn't moved, doesn't look likely to move for a while. No new transmission. Last order said to mingle.

They never said 'how'.

"I don't need you to teach me _anything_," he says, and finishes his glass, and leads the way to the dance floor.


	2. Furries

**2. furries:**

"Aw, come on, it's not my fault it rained!"

Sasuke glared and started grooming water out of his fur again. His mane was drenched, sticking to his neck. "It's your fault we were out in it," he declared, and turned his back pointedly.

Naruto snorted, brows furrowed, ears hanging low. "Like you didn't want to fight as much as I did."

Sasuke ignored him, though the tip of his tufted tail curled and tapped the ground. Naruto tried very hard not to pounce on it. The wolf-fox-mutt sighed, looking out at the rain falling in sheets behind the little cave's overhang, and attempted to wring water out of his fluffy tail.

Cold drafts. Brrrr. He waited for a whole, oh, at least a minute before inching closer to Sasuke.

Another quick glare over a shoulder. Naruto paused for a second, and then, to hell with it, he flopped against Sasuke's side, bringing the cat down with him, and he _cuddled up_. Hah.

Mm, so warm.

Sasuke hissed at him. Naruto snorted and burrowed against his side. Since Naruto's ears weren't full of holes yet, he wasn't going to take it seriously. Lions or tigers or housecats, all cats were just weird like that, saying 'maybe' when they mean 'yes' and 'no' when they mean 'maybe', and clawing people when they really mean 'no'. Also, they were always right even when they were wrong, and everyone else was wrong even when they were right. But Naruto was on to him now!

Sasuke's tail lashed against Naruto's legs. "Annoying," he complained -- but still no claws, and that spoke louder than mere words. He moved around for a minute, but Naruto stubbornly refused to move off. After a while Sasuke settled down, though he was ignoring him all loud and 'look at me not looking at you'. Naruto snickered. He hated the cold so much more than Naruto did.

Naruto grinned and sniffed at his chest a little. It was a rare time when he could do that without getting his face scratched off. Sniff, sniff. So _weird_. Not a scent he just instinctively _got_, like, say, Kiba's. Full of strange accents and understated spice and things he had to learn how to read. So _interesting_. His nose brushed against the lion's shoulder, his collarbone, twitching, letting out little puffs of breath and taking in another lungful of cat scent after another.

Then he paused, blinking. Cat talk was really weird -- who heard of wagging your tail when you were angry, seriously -- but this... "... Is that a _purr_?"

There was a long moment of total silence. Naruto tilted his head. Sasuke was staring a hole through his skull, and he wasn't answering. At all.

So Naruto prodded him with a clawed toe. "No, really, is itYIP _OWW_."

"_It's a growl_."


	3. Pirates

3. **pirates**:

"Little bastard almost killed two of ours, Captain." Kiba's upper lip curls in an angry snarl. He digs a vicious knee in the back of the young man he and Gaara have got pinned face down to the deck.

Naruto's eyes flit to the rest of his crew. Sakura has Chouji in hand, and while the spread of blood on his shirt looks spectacular she doesn't seem alarmed, just kind of put-upon. "Hey, Sawbones!" he calls anyway.

She spares him a snort and a quick roll of her eyes, and wipes her bloody hands on her boy's breeches. "Knife was too short to get through that lubber," she calls back.

Shika's broken leg has already been reset and bound, and he's drinking himself into a stupor to ride it out. Naruto's eyes return to the captive still struggling under two of his men.

The young man lifts his head, and then it's all pale, pale skin and ink-black hair and a pretty face that Naruto doesn't even notice right away, because the eyes harpoon him first. They're not so much inky as they are storm-at-night, where you can't see a damn thing but you know it's packed full of things about to kill you anyway.

... Feisty.

"Should we tie him to the mast?" Gaara inquires, tone clinical as he fists a hand in the prisoner's hair to keep him still.

"Yeah, and give him the lash until he--"

"Naw," Naruto drawls. "If he gets rained on and dies of lung congestion we'll never get our ransom. Noblemen are frail little things, after all."

He gets a wordless sneer and another rage-black glare in return. He smirks a little wider.

"My cabin will do fine."

He's already wondering whether he really wants to hand him back.


	4. in SPACE!

4. **...in SPACE!!: **

Sasuke yanks his seatbelt open, and then he's floating. He pulls himself out of his seat and kicks off the wall, zooming straight through the door with a little too much velocity. Damn it. He absorbs the impact with the corridor wall with both hands and shoves to the side.

He knows that in unplanned zero grav you're not supposed to move away from the walls and a good, solid handhold, but dragging himself hand over hand on the leading rope would be too slow. If the gravity turns back on while he's floating -- whatever, he can pilot with a leg in a cast.

He can't pilot if the stupid mechanic can't fix the engine because he stupidly went and died of engine shrapnel to the face.

"Status!" Sasuke snaps when he reaches the machine room. The door is cracked open where it should be airtight, and for a second he's sure he's going to come into a charnel house, bodies floating limply, red droplets orbiting them like tiny ruby moons.

"No need to yell, flyboy!" a voice answers from somewhere he can't see. His heart lurches and starts thinking about not hammering so much.

After a few seconds scanning the room, he finds a pair of feet sticking out from under a piece of machinery. He's very tempted to go kick them. Their owner sounded so _unconcerned_.

He snarls. "Would it kill you to use the interphone?"

"Right now? Yeah, actually."

Sasuke pauses. ... Ah.

"Hand me the big twisty wrench, wouldya."

Sasuke clenches his teeth to keep from -- he's not sure what he would yell, but ...something he probably shouldn't. He launches himself off the wall to catch the floating wrench, and then he flips in the air and kicks back off the ceiling. He sees the top of Naruto's face through a grid, catches the blond looking and pretending not to be.

"Here." He holds the wrench out.

Naruto grins suddenly, in that way that always makes him wary. "Can't stick my arms out from over here. Gotta have to follow me underneath." He cackles. And as Sasuke glares, he adds, "Ain't nothing wrong with a bit of honest motor grease, princess."

Irritated, Sasuke drags himself to the crack between wall and motor Naruto wedged himself into, and wriggles waist-deep in. It's a tight fit, borderline claustrophobic. Good thing no one pilots a spaceship if they're scared of being locked in narrow spaces. (Sasuke likes tight spaces fine. It's wide open rooms with viewing bays opening onto Space he has a problem with, especially when they contain family members dead and drifting.) He slaps the wrench in the mechanic's hand. "Here."

"Good. Now can you move higher and hold that piece for me? I don't know what genius forgot to make it magnetic but it keeps floating off on me."

If Naruto sounded mocking, or even just a little bit amused, Sasuke would go right back out and let him handle it, but Naruto doesn't. He's... not extremely serious, not in the _'we're in_ such_ deep shit'_ way, but not teasing either. Sober -- a rare expression on him. So... Sasuke crawls up. He moves his arms up until they're framing Naruto's face, and he presses on the piece overhead.

In the process of not looking at his focused expression, he notices that Naruto's arms could have fit out of the grid to get the wrench just fine.

He's still thinking of explosions and critical system failures and bodies floating like they drowned and him being all alone in an empty ship, so even after the piece is soldered back in and Naruto has gone on to repair things he doesn't need a second pair of hands for, Sasuke stays in the dark crawlspace with him. And he watches his sober face, and his steady hands.

"Better to stay tucked away where you can't be pinballed around, yeah," Naruto says as he works, so casual Sasuke knows he _isn't_, knows that he knows.

Naruto finishes off his repairs and then the sparks die down and they're quiet, so close they can feel each other's heat.

Afterwards Sasuke doesn't remember who touched first, who kissed first. Here, in the dark and narrow space, it's intimate, strangely timeless, out of reality.

It takes the ship's proximity alerts beeping before either of them even thinks about crawling out. Then they get tangled into each other's legs, and they start insulting each other. By the time they finally manage to get out, disheveled, bruised, blinded by the harsh ceiling lights, the moment is killed pretty dead. Sasuke stomps off in a huff and tells himself it was a fluke, a mistake -- a momentary lapse, at best. What happened in the crawlspace stays in the crawlspace. No need to bring it up again.

(if it helped with his nightmares, he doesn't need to bring that up either.)

He lasts a week before he yanks Naruto in the nearest cupboard.


	5. born another gender

5.** born another gender**:

Naruto kinda hates Uchiha.

Popular and well-loved and not giving a shit about any of it. Superior, cold, disdainful, refusing to accept him as an equal. And that friggin cheat mode of a sharingan!

But Satsuki has the most gorgeous face, even more gorgeous than Sakura, and when she whips her head around, her long wild mane swings around her hips and then it gets really hard not to notice her butt. Like... _really_ hard. In his pants.

So he kinda hates her. And he kinda hates that he can't stop looking, that he can't stop wanting her to start hating him, because hate is so much better than that frozen indifference. To her, he's just one of those boys, and Uchiha Satsuki doesn't give a damn about boys, she doesn't even so much as despise them; she's written them all off.

He wants her to be his rival. But when his classmates notice his interest, they laugh at him. So he says he just wants her to be his girlfriend -- they still laugh like he's _stupid_, but at least not like he's not a real man on top of it. He'd have to be ball-less to think a girl can be something to aspire to, right?

The girlfriend thing is even a tiny little bit true, but it's not even a tenth of it. He just wants her to see him, see his power, see his drive, recognize him -- just the way she wants them all to recognize her.

But they all look at her pretty doll face and her tits, and they start pitying and coddling and trying to dull her razor edges, and he hates them more than he's ever hated Satsuki.


	6. Post Apocalyptic

_Why do I like to break Sasuke so much... Oh right, he's sexy that way. Hurhurhur._

6. **Post-apocalyptic**

He stopped in the middle of the town square and dumped his backpack at his feet.

The old gnarled tree was still tall and twisty, perfect for climbing. There were no children on it, swinging like little monkeys, despite how sunny and warm it was. No mothers chatting underneath as they kept an eye on their offspring.

He wasn't exactly surprised. He had crossed the whole town to get there, after all, not that it was a big town at all. The whole town, the whole country.

The tree looked lonely.

He leaned his back against the rough trunk. Slid down. The big root was still a perfect seat.

When the panic had died down and his college had grown quiet, he hadn't cared. (he _had _cared, because he knew what that quiet meant, but he wasn't going to stop and be quiet like they were. Like the tomb. He just wasn't.)

When he had crossed the capital, with its crashed cars and looted buildings and bodies everywhere, he hadn't cared. He'd found a boy about his size and taken his clothes, because his own clothes were disgusting with all the blood he'd thrown up when he was still sick, and that boy had preferred to shoot himself and somehow his brain matter had mostly gone on the wall instead of the shirt. (he'd left the guy his math notes, to make up for the fact he had never lent them while he was alive, even though he knew how meaningless it was.)

He'd taken a car, despite not having his license yet; driving wasn't difficult. The car was noisy. After that he'd walked. The woods and fields weren't noisy at all, but if he could hear nothing but the wind and some animal calls, that was fine; what else should he have heard out there?

But now he was home and it was still quiet (like the tomb), and.

And.

He couldn't (make sure) go home just yet.

(he had no gun to kill himself with.)

He watched a bird land on the ground and poke around for food. He wondered whether it was disgruntled by the lack of fresh bread crumbs, how long it was going to come back and check, just in case.

He'd have tried to catch it for food -- after a whole two weeks of practice he was getting good at it -- but it was kind of useless, wasn't it. When he went home he would break. He hadn't yet -- he'd had hope. Stupid, denial-filled hope.

Might as well skip the bargaining stage. Go straight to the end of this game. Useless to kill the bird when he was about to kill himself. Because at college they all thought he was cool with being a loner but he'd always had his family.

He was wasting time. Dithering. What for? He got up, not bothering to get his pack.

"Aw, what the hell did you jump like that for? Fucker flew off!"

At the first word -- the first sound -- _human voice _-- he twisted around.

Wasn't his family, he already knew. Wasn't.

Kind of was, though.

"-- hey, wait a minute. You're not a hobo."

"Fuck you," he rasped out, on automatic.

The blond guy with the five-days-beard burst out laughing. "Oh, shit, I'm so tempted to let you, you have no idea. Sasuke? That really you?"

He blinked. Things were starting to look weirdly wavy. "I guess." Sasuke. Yeah. That was him. He rubbed a hand over his face. His own chin was starting to get prickly as well. "Naruto? Uzumaki Naruto?"

"The one and only. Hee. I can't believe you're here, you asshole. Hell, I can't believe I'm actually happy to see you!"

He looked halfway between put-upon and grinning. Weird expression. Weird guy, with his unmarried, too-young mom, they'd never fit in and...

... he wasn't family, but...

"I thought you went to college all the way across the continent!"

"Not quite that far," Sasuke replied, words slipping out without thought. He stood there, watching as the blond moved to him, slow at first, almost cautious, and then faster. One step closer and another step and another step, and Sasuke couldn't move.

Naruto threw his arms around him and yanked him into his chest and hugged hard, so hard Sasuke's breath all wheezed out.

He fisted his hands in the back of Naruto's shirt, and told himself it was just so he'd stop his fingers from shaking. He must have been hungry, that was all. Yeah. Hungry. Tired. That was all.

That was all.

His mouth found Naruto's and it tasted like salt. Parted his lips and sucked in his tongue and didn't even care if Naruto had been joking when he said he was tempted. He must have left finger-shaped bruises on Naruto's back by now.

Naruto pushed him against the rough bark of the tree and gasped as he broke free, and for the first time in two weeks Sasuke could have screamed. Naruto was just staring at him in shock and if he started screaming he didn't think he'd ever stop. Don't leave me. Don't leave me it's not fair stop bleeding stop breaking _don't die on me_ --

Mouth on his neck, unsure at first. Teeth. Half-assed, scruffy beard rubbing him red. Yes. _Yes_. He fell back on his ass on the root, pulled until Naruto straddled him, rocked.

Neither of them let go for at least a hour, perhaps even two.

* * *

"I'm wearing a dead classmate's stuff," Sasuke said, apropos of nothing.

"And we jizzed all over it," Naruto remarked with a snorting laugh. Sasuke didn't even feel like bothering to frown.

"Gross."

"Your _face _is gross."

Sighing, Sasuke opened his eyes to look at the darkening sky. "I need a bath."

"Yeah, I can tell."

Sasuke managed to unclench one of his hands, long enough to pinch his hip in punishment. Naruto yelped.

"Get off me. Can't feel my leg."

The moment was over. Grumbling, Naruto moved. He stood, dusted himself off, then with an awkward little twitch he held out his hand. Sasuke took it without a word, allowing himself to be pulled up. It was a little much to keep holding it afterward, though...

A couple hours ago he wouldn't have cared about what it looked like. A couple hours ago he hadn't minded that he'd gone two weeks without a bath either, or that he was starting to get hungry again.

A couple hours ago he was alone in a dead world.

He was still more alone than not. Just... not utterly so.

He took a few testing steps, his leg erupting into pins and needles. Naruto paced him.

"I'm not going to trip and break something on flat ground," he muttered. Naruto gave a shrug.

"You wanna go to my place? I have a full tub of water and I've only used it once. It's gotta be cold by now though."

Sasuke shrugged, leaning down to pick up his bag. Stared down at it.

He'd bought it with his mother, before he left. He remembered her suggesting a purple one, to tease him.

"I should go home."

For the first time in two weeks he didn't want to. None of that both-did-and-didn't-but-he-_had_-to. He just...

It bothered him to think of Naruto standing there, watching him break. He'd make that sorry, embarrassed, disgusted face people made when faced with deadbeat drunkards and crazies. Sasuke didn't like that. He didn't want to let himself break anymore.

But he had to go home, and...

"I buried them," Naruto said, awkward and quiet. "They're not -- that is, I buried a lot of people. They're not just..."

Lying there and decomposing, his brain supplied.

"...Oh."

"You'll go tomorrow, okay?"

Naruto's hands were in his pockets, shoulders hunched like he'd done something maybe a little wrong.

He was taller than the last time they'd seen each other -- two years ago? Dead last Naruto. Stupid Naruto.

He'd buried Sasuke's parents.

Sasuke tried to say thank you, but it wouldn't come out. "You just want to get my pants off," he managed to say past the lump in his throat.

Naruto laughed a little, more out of sympathy than because his distraction had worked. "Yeah, I kinda do." He gave Sasuke's dirty shirt a tug, teasing in a subdued, oddly gentle way. "I'll dress you all in orange, it'll be awesome."

"Fuck you," Sasuke said, not even trying to make it sound like he meant it. His lips kept trying to quirk up even when he didn't want them to.

Naruto smiled at him. "I'm so tempted, you have no idea."

He draped an arm around Sasuke's shoulders and dragged him home.

* * *

_(As for the sequel that will not be written, because I know some of you will ask: the next morning they go to Sasuke's house and there's a message on the phone and it's Itachi, who went looking for Sasuke so they might actually have missed each other le gasp. It dates from ten days ago so he might have died since then, but they still leave the village to look for him. Road trip FTW! Along the way they meet crazies, highwaymen, people to rescue, people who start following them around, a shit-ton of wildlife, and perhaps a few zombies.  
I'm really not kidding about not writing it, please don't ask.)_


	7. Urban Fantasy, vampire version

7. **urban fantasy - vampire version**:

"So... What brings someone like you to a place like this?"

The pretty boy stares at him for a brief second, like he can't believe someone like Naruto dared to talk to him. Yeah, Naruto knows he doesn't exactly fit the mood of the dance club. Everyone's in black, or dark blue, or silver. Flowing laced-up shirts and corsets abound, and leather pants. He's the only one wearing too-large orange jeans and a mesh shirt. Like he gives a fuck. Let's just see anyone kick him out!

"What brings anyone?" the boy retorts with a disdainful snort, and starts turning away.

"Looking for a vamp?" Naruto asks, amused.

The boy gives him a longer look then, eyes narrowed. Naruto bets it's not the question most people ask him first. Naruto can see a bunch of newbies in a corner whispering 'is he...?' as they watch that too-beautiful, pale-skinned face.

Pretty-boy is really pretty with his sleeveless turtleneck clingy top, though. Really, really pretty. Got the haughty, standoffish attitude to make a newcomer wonder which side of the food chain he's on, too.

The way that collar molds itself to his throat, hiding the pale skin and yet following every curve, it's such a tease. It's like he's saying 'as if I would show my vampire marks to you, you bunch of wannabes.'

He's not marked.

Not yet. But soon.

"What's it to you?" he asks. He's suspicious now. Naruto likes it better than dismissive.

He moves closer, already purring, and he grins his white, toothy grin. "Oh, 'cause that could be arranged."


	8. Police,firefighter

8. **police/firefighters**:

"No. You did not see that." Sasuke says, a low-voiced, barely contained threat, as he grips the man's collar with both hands and keeps him pinned against the wall. Actually, one hand and one gun.

The man snarls back, blue eyes blazing in the middle of soot-stained skin. "Yes I fucking did! No one got out of that, you hear me? No one!"

"You're lying!"

"You think I WANT to tell you someone _burned alive_!?" the firefighter yells back, big gloved hand snatching Sasuke's collar right back and shoving him against the other side of the narrow alley. There's something raw in his voice that's not all smoke. Guilt. Grief.

Sasuke starts shaking his head.

"Man... You're a cop, yeah? You know they surrounded the whole block. If he'd gotten out..."

Sasuke's clean uniform is getting all sooty. He can't manage to care. "... You're wrong."

The firefighter shakes his head slowly, anger draining out to leave only sorrow and horrible sympathy.

"You're wrong. He's not dead. He's not dead, he can't be dead, I was supposed to ARREST him, that was why -- why he sent messages at the bullpen, he wanted me to catch him! It was someone else, you saw someone else--"

He's vaguely aware he's screaming. He still has his gun in hand. The firefighter curls his fingers around his hand slowly, cautiously, and he guides it down, aiming the barrel at the ground. His other hand leaves Sasuke's collar to cup his cheek.

"I saw his face," he says simply. "Now I see yours. There's no mistake."

His thumb rubs Sasuke's cheek. Something wet leaves a smear.

Sasuke can only repeat, "he can't be dead, I didn't send him to prison yet," again and again until the man presses his face in his smoke-scented shoulder and hugs him and then he can't speak at all.


	9. Switched Plot Roles valley of the end

**10. reversed role**  
(Valley of the End)

"I lost my mother too!" he screams. "I lost my parents. Stop saying I don't understand!"

"Your parents _died traitors_," the other boy snarls.

He flinches, shakes his head. "You think that means it doesn't count? They were still my parents! They still - they _loved me_." And he loves them too, he always will, except he doesn't think he'll stop resenting them anytime soon either. At least he's not utterly alone. "They were doing what they thought was right," he says, more quietly.

Naruto laughs. There are tears in his eyes but his teeth are bared. "Yeah? My mom did what she thought was right too. You know? She saved the village at the Chuunin exam! And then a bunch of psycho bastards grabbed her and tore her open to get her demon out, and no one did anything about it. No one cared. No one's doing anything now! Justice - justice for her - and the others, they could be protected, but oh, _our _jinchuuriki is already lost, it's _pointless, _don't _bother_-"

Between 'family' and '_like_ family' the space is paper thin and yet whole worlds of difference press in the gap, and he can't lie to himself loud enough to pretend that if it were Itachi who had been thrown to the wolves he would not be in the exact same place.

"Come home," Sasuke says quietly - quietly, because he already knows Naruto won't listen.


End file.
